L.A. Film Festival kicks off 10 days of narratives, docs, foreign entries, and weird-ass special screenings

With the possible exception of AFI Fest (held in November), the Los Angeles Film Festival (LAFF, hereinafter) is the city's premier general-purpose film festival, as opposed to the dozens of smaller events centered on work from and about various countries, ethnicities, and political and sexual orientations.

This year, there will 83 features from 31 countries, including nine world premieres, three North American premieres, and two U.S. premieres, shown over the course of 10 days starting Thursday. There are 10 films vying in the Narrative Competition, and 11 in the Documentary Competition. The International Showcase includes 20 features, and there are special sections curated by Mira Nair (Salaam Bombay!), Nigerian straight-to-video director Tunde Kelani, and Neil Young. Plus bunches of music videos, shorts, and weird-ass special screenings (some of them free), from a Yellow Submarine sing-along (8000 Sunset Courtyard, Sat., 8 p.m.; free) to Dziga Vertov's still-dazzling 1926 classic Man with a Movie Camera (John Anson Ford Amphitheatre, Sat., 8:30 p.m.) with a live musical score by Oranger.

Since much of this wasn't available for advance screening, and there's no way any one person could have seen it all anyway, below are capsule reviews of what I (AK) and my intrepid staff - Leonard Klady (LK), James Greenberg (JG), Luke Y. Thompson (LYT), and Wade Major (WM) - were able to see. (All showtimes noted are p.m. unless otherwise indicated.)

We highly recommend you check out the full schedule at the website (Lafilmfest.com), since one of the missing titles might be just what piques your interest. Bon visionnement!

After the Apocalypse.

The world is wiped out for unspoken reasons - unspoken because the few survivors have lost the ability to talk. As is so often the case in such films (The Quiet Earth, The World, The Flesh and the Devil), there's only one woman left (Jacqueline Bowman), and more than one man. You can guess where that's going to lead. The four guys are an Asian (writer-director Yasuaki Nakajima), a surly giant (Zorikh Lequidre), a clown (Moises Morales), and a black guy (Oscar Lowe) who dresses distractingly like Bootsy. Nakajima gets resourcefulness points for coming up with a way to avoid shooting sync sound; and Carolyn MacCartney's crisp black-and-white cinematography is easy on the eyes. Still, there is the sense that the bare-bones story is supposed to signify some deep symbolism. If so, it was too deep for me to discern. (AK) (Laemmle's Sunset 5, Mon., 4:30; DGA, Thur., June 24, 9:30)

Bad Meat.

Scott Dikkers, former editor of The Onion, directed and cowrote (with Michael Hirsch) this comedy about two idiots (Lance Barber and Billie Worley) in the small town of Butcher's Mill, who decide to kidnap a local congressman (Chevy Chase, who's gone before 15 minutes have passed). When the congressman croaks, they figure they can get at least a small ransom for his body, but these guys - particularly Barber's Belushi-esque blowhard, who is convinced of his own brilliance in a way that only an imbecile could be - can't even get that right. This is unbelievably broad, often deadpan, moron humor that doesn't even make a stab at plausibility (which is just fine). It flags a bit halfway through, as the jokes start to feel repetitive, but eventually rediscovers its rhythm. (AK) (Laemmle's Sunset 5, Wed., 9:45 and Thur., June 24, 4:30)

Before Sunset.

The young lovers (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) from Richard Linklater's 1995 Before Sunrise meet again after nine years and have little more than an hour to catch up before the former must board a plane for America. At the end of the first film, they promised to meet again in six months at the same spot. Obviously, they didn't: We find out why and discover how the passage of time has altered their worldviews and their love. The tightness of the timeframe makes Before Sunset in many ways a better film. While it's still primarily one long conversation, the sense of urgency is greater, and the final scenes achieve a wry quality that the more blatantly romantic original lacked. (AK) (ArcLight, Wed., 7:30)

Campus Queen.

It always feels churlish to pick on the technical shortcomings of cinema from a Third World country, but, unfortunately, Nigerian director Tunde Kelani's comedy/action/musical is laid low by badly mixed sound and a lack of subtitles for English dialogue delivered with such thick accents that American ears can't decipher much of it. Cultural differences also cause problems: The battling campus groups whose rivalry forms the center of the story aren't just friendly enemies; they want to murder each other. For no particular reason, this video production occasionally cuts to musical numbers being performed on a stage: Even without any sense of how they fit into the plot, they are handily the best scenes. (AK) (DGA, Sun., 7; Laemmle's Sunset 5, Wed., 7)

Chisholm '72 - Unbought & Unbossed.

It's refreshing to see the traditional formula of newsreel footage and talking heads work as well as it does in Shola Lynch's look at Shirley Chisholm - a first-term congresswoman from Brooklyn who, in 1972, had the temerity to become the first black woman to run for president. Rather than seeming dated, Chisholm's moxie and commitment are a refreshing antidote to the opportunism and cynicism that rule the political roost today. Chisholm told people "if you can't support me, get out of my way." Not surprisingly, she met a lot of resistance. She was physically attacked three times while on the campaign trail, and even the Congressional Black Caucus and emerging women's-rights groups failed to support her. The story climaxes at the Democratic National Convention, where Chisholm had hoped to influence the platform. The whole point of the campaign was not to win, but to enter the struggle and pave the way for future generations. Now retired and living in Florida, Chisholm says she wants to be remembered as a woman who fought for change in the 20th century. Mission accomplished, but not finished. (JG) (DGA, Fri., 2; free)

Cowards Bend the Knee.

This 2003 work from wacky Winnipegian Guy Maddin was shot in between Dracula: Pages from a Virgin's Diary and his current The Saddest Music in the World. What's more, it was shot as a peepshow art installation, with its chapters designed to be viewed in any order - which makes it even more surreal than his usual style. In black and white, and free of dialogue, it has something to do with a hockey player named Guy Maddin and his pregnant girlfriend and creepy doctors and a beauty parlor that's also a whorehouse and an abortion mill and, if it's not obvious, I'm not quite sure what it's about. Which is fine with me. Maddin transports you into his strange and threatening dream world, and it's an amazing place, well worth visiting. (AK) (DGA, Sun., 9:45)

Goodbye, Dragon Inn.

Set in a shabby movie theater in Taiwan, this latest from Tsai Ming-Laing (Vive L'Amour, What Time Is It There?) transpires in real time, during a showing of King Hu's 1966 martial-arts classic Dragon Inn. Customers and employees drift in and out of the auditorium, only occasionally paying attention to the film. It appears as though the theater is a gay pickup spot, but nobody ever quite makes physical contact. Tsai sometimes holds for a minute or more on a single shot with no actors, which can make staying awake difficult. Despite that, the movie creates an overwhelming sense of nostalgia and melancholy; by the end, we begin to suspect that we in the audience are ghosts, eavesdropping on ghosts, who are themselves half-listening to the voices of dead actors. Definitely slow, but it lingers in the mind, nonetheless. (AK) (Laemmle's Sunset 5, Fri., 7:15)

Hero.

Zhang Yimou's opulent 2002 martial-arts epic was almost surely conceived in imitation of Ang Lee's massively successful Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Jet Li stars as an assassin trying to kill the first emperor of China. Much of the film is in flashback, as the emperor and the assassin play a game of cat and mouse. We soon discover that we can trust nothing we're hearing and seeing, as new revelations continually show the assassin's tale in a new light. The cast includes Donnie Yen, Maggie Cheung, and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai; the action choreography is by the amazing Ching Siu-Tung, director of masterpieces like A Chinese Ghost Story and Swordsman II; and the cinematography is by the equally amazing Christopher Doyle (In the Mood for Love, Chungking Express). As a result, it's one of the most visually gorgeous films you'll ever see; on the down side, the narrative seems to slow down to a near halt halfway through, as the Rashomon-like revisions become repetitive. Still, it's shameful that Miramax has sat on this for almost two years. It's a deeply flawed film of incredible beauty. (AK) (Ford Amphitheatre, Fri., 8:30)

Imelda.

Imelda Marcos is probably most famous for owning hundreds of pairs of shoes, but Ramona S. Diaz's documentary about the former Philippine first lady goes beyond that and captures a complex and contradictory world figure. The Philippine-born Diaz first met Imelda in 1993, when she was making a film about the fall of the Marcos regime. Five years later, Diaz and her crew returned to shoot in Imelda's trailer, her seaside home, and in public, where the dictator's wife is greeted by a still-adoring public. Imelda's charm, poise, and beauty make it difficult to hate her despite the suffering and human-rights violations perpetrated by her husband's reign of terror. Lovingly shot by Ferne Pearlstein (who won the documentary cinematography award at Sundance), Imelda shows the beauty of the Philippines and the struggle of its people to just get by. Diaz obviously has a love/hate relationship with her subject: As she sees it, there is a little bit of Imelda in all of us. (JG) (Laemmle's Sunset 5, Mon., 6:30; Laemmle's Town Center 5, Tue., 7:15)

Invisible Light.

Korean American Gah-In (Choi Yun-Sun) is having an affair with a married man; his wife has found out. This depresses the anorexic Gah-In, who mopes around, trying to decide whether to eat. Less than halfway through, the action switches focus to the deceived (and pregnant) wife (Lee Sun-Jin), who flies to Seoul and embarks on her own brief affair. Korean-American writer-director Gina Kim explores issues of female identity here, but there is almost no narrative movement. (AK) (Laemmle's Sunset 5, Tue., 5; DGA, Wed., 7:15)

Men Without Jobs.

The very title of writer-director Mad Matthewz's film sounds portentously heavy, so one can only let out a sigh of relief when it quickly takes on the attitude of its main characters' askew personalities - two thirtyish black men, aimlessly wandering through life with a vague dream of musical glory. Still, the film isn't simply some inane tale of underachievers. Matthewz manages to weave social commentary and poignancy into his antic contemporary chronicle. The film has a smooth efficiency of movement and imagery, and is grounded in the astute performances of Bonz Malone and Ishmael Butler. Points are never forced: The yarn is rife with the sort of surprise that comes from character and not contrivance. (LK) (Laemmle's Sunset 5, Sat., 9:30; DGA, Tue., 5)

Metallica: Some Kind of Monster.

Documentarians Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky (Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills) were the first filmmakers to get Metallica's permission to use its music in a movie; so they were a natural choice to document the recording of the recent St. Anger album. What they couldn't have predicted - and what makes the film so compelling - is that they very nearly ended up chronicling the permanent dissolution of heavy metal's best known band. (The members of Metallica own the rights to the film and deserve a lot of credit for allowing many unflattering moments to remain.) Lead singer James Hetfield appears to be a rowdy, drunken biker. Drummer Lars Ulrich looks like a passive-aggressive control freak. Guitarist Kirk Hammett comes off the best, as the peacemaker who's had to completely sublimate his own ego in order to hold the band together. It's difficult to know how non-fans will react; in excess of two hours, the movie may test their patience. Certainly it's interesting to see the nuts and bolts of songwriting and the process of putting the full album package together. (LYT) (Ford Amphitheatre, Sun., 8:30)

Robbing Peter.

From the opening frame, writer-director Mario de la Vega sets an unusual and absorbing course in this crime/comedy. In fact, the ultra-low-key manner of the storytelling is so convincing that one's likely to believe one is watching a promo and not the feature. However, catching up is no problem. Vega knows genre conventions; the familiar yarn centers on an unemployed man who agrees to float contraband across the Mexico-U.S. border for a price. Of course, things will not go according to plan, and bad behavior and greed will conspire to create more plot twists than a corkscrew. It's preposterous, but the good-natured cast knows it. It's also a great deal of fun; the filmmaker displays enough talent to deserve a second shot with considerably greater resources. (LK) (Laemmle's Sunset 5, Tue., 9:45; DGA, Fri., June 25, 7:15)

Two Brothers.

In the jungles of Thailand, hunter/self-aggrandizer Aidan McRory (Guy Pearce) adopts tiger cub Kumal, who is confiscated and sold to a circus when McRory is double-crossed by local authorities and the amusingly corrupt French governor (Jean-Claude Dreyfus). The governor's irritatingly wide-eyed son (Freddie Highmore) discovers Kumal's twin brother, Sangha. The kid digs kittens, as most kids do, but this one turns out to be big enough to cause trouble, especially when confronted with the yapping family dog. Director Jean-Jacques Annaud frequently gets better performances from animals than people - just compare the lead cub in The Bear to Brad Pitt in Seven Years in Tibet. See? Tigers aren't as expressive, at least in the humanoid sense, as bears, which may explain why Two Brothers has a larger cast than The Bear. But they're way cooler, especially to us Americans who never have to deal with them in the wild. Annaud knows this, and doesn't disappoint. As with The Bear, this is a family movie for more than just kids, so if you dig the big cats, you'll have a good time no matter your age. (LYT) (DGA, Sat., 1:30)

Unknown Soldier.

The battleground in filmmaker Ferenc Tóth's stylish, brooding movie isn't some distant location but the Harlem streets; and its warrior is ill-equipped to confront the enemy. Ellison is an 18-year-old with little on his mind other than earning enough money to hang with his girlfriend and buy music and clothes. All this changes abruptly when his father dies of a stroke, and he's tossed into the street. While the film doesn't have much story and lurches from one incident to the next, the sheer presence of Carl Louis in the title role holds our attention throughout. He's part cipher, his truly haunting persona buffeted by the often obvious influences and pitfalls of an environment that lists toward the Darwinian. Ellison may not be the fittest, but, in his own quiet way, he's determined, eloquent, and adept at keeping a step ahead of becoming a victim. (LK) (Laemmle's Sunset 5, Sun., 7:15; Laemmle's Playhouse 7, Thur., June 24, 7:15)

Wilderness Survival for Girls.

When three teenage girls head out for a weekend at a cabin, it's only fair to assume terror or sexual awakening or both are in the offing. There's a bit of all that and more in this maiden effort from writer/director/producers Kim Roberts and Eli Despres, and it's dispensed in a clumsy, predictable fashion that's well below the standards of campfire tales. The three teenagers include a sexually closeted bookworm, a naive good girl, and, of course, the tough chick. They gab a lot about what young women tend to chatter about in movies of this ilk. And then night falls, and the grisly woodland legends are invoked and quickly followed by the arrival of a mysterious man. Is he a murderer? The girls aren't taking any chances, and neither are Roberts and Despres: The film is destined for a quick trip to the bargain rack at Videoland. (LK) (Laemmle's Sunset 5, Tue., 7:15; DGA, Fri., June 25, 9:30)

Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession.

From the mid-'70s to the late '80s, the pay-cable premium Z Channel was a cherished facet of L.A.'s cultural landscape. Unlike corporate monoliths like HBO and Showtime, the Z Channel's blend of hits, classics, and rediscovered obscurities was fashioned by one man, chief programmer Jerry Harvey, probably the only one of his profession to book films on any criteria other than their star power and theatrical grosses. In 1988, after numerous changes in ownership suggested that the station's days were numbered, Jerry murdered his wife and then committed suicide. No one who knew Jerry - including me, who knew him slightly - was unaware that he was deeply psychologically troubled to start with. Despite its title, Xan Cassavetes's documentary is more a history of Jerry than of the station, though it would be impossible to do one without the other. It's both a wrenching story of mental illness and the tragic wreckage it can result in, and a look at a golden period of cinephile programming in that brief period before corporate consolidation removed the possibility of an individual's personality determining a station's character. (AK) (DGA, Sat., 7)